Microsoft had started enabling the ‘Do not Track’ feature as the default setting with the rolling out of Internet Explorer 10. But, the company has now announced that it will not turn on the ‘Do Not Track’ feature in the upcoming versions of Internet Explorer and Spartan by default. This feature when activated in browsers tells websites that a user wishes to opt out of third-party tracking for advertising purposes.
According to a report by Tech Crunch, major browsers such as Google, Mozilla, Opera, Apple and Microsoft support this feature, but a user’s request to not be followed is not necessarily honored by advertisers, as it is no more than a request sent by the browser.
According to Microsoft’s blog, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch stated that the decision was taken in order to abide by the latest draft of the official W3C standard for ‘Do Not Track’. The report added that, “the signal sent MUST reflect the user’s preference, not the choice of some vendor, institution, site, or network-imposed mechanism outside the user’s control; this applies equally to both the general preference and exceptions.” Though the report by Tech Crunch states that, it probably doesn’t matter all that much whether user turns it on or off anyway.
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